Blaenau Gwent

Blaenau Gwent is a county constituency in South Wales, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election. The current MP is Nick Smith of the Labour Party.HistoryBlaenau Gwent is often referred to as Aneurin Bevan's old constituency. However, the constituency was created in 1983, twenty-three years after Bevan's death, from the upper part of the former Abertillery constituency, the town of Brynmawr from the Brecon and Radcor constituency, and Bevan's old Ebbw Vale seat with the exception of the area of the Rhymney Community (formerly Rhymney Urban District). The then Labour party leader Michael Foot, who had won Ebbw Vale in the by-election following Bevan's death, was the seat's first MP.Until 2005, the constituency was considered one of the safest Labour seats in the country. In the 1983 and 1992 general elections, it was Labour's safest seat. The Conservative Party and Liberal Democrats have both been very weak in the seat. Neither has won 10% of the vote since 1987 and the Conservatives have never achieved one eighth of the total votes cast. In 2005 the Liberal Democrats received their lowest share of the vote in the United Kingdom and the Conservatives their second lowest, and both lost their deposits, though this particular election saw unusual circumstances.